Newsworld kicks off digital printing of Mail in U.S.

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

Newsworld Corp. Ltd. last month kicked off digital production of London's Daily Mail at a New Jersey print site for distribution to readers in New York.
Newsworld produces 500 Daily Mail copies six days a week on a Screen Truepress Jet520 digital press outfitted with a Hunkeler finishing system. The papers are printed at AlphaGraphics in New Jersey before they are distributed in New York, said David Renouf, Newsworld's chief executive.
"We started production on Sunday night of the Daily Mail — successful production and produced the papers for Monday's edition," Renouf told Newspapers & Technology.
The papers were delivered by newspaper distributor Speedimpex to newsstands throughout Manhattan for single-copy sales.

Photo: Newsworld

Newsworld's David Renouf shows off the inaugural edition of the Daily Mail produced at AlphaGraphics in New Jersey for New York distribution.
Last year, Associated Newspapers Ltd., which publishes the Daily Mail, signed a four-year deal with Newsworld to produce the British paper in the United States for distribution in New York.
For now, Newsworld is printing the Daily Mail six days a week but will begin producing the Mail on Sunday later this year, Renouf said.

Dubai printer ramps up
Meantime, Newsworld partnered with Atlas Media in Dubai for the digital production of U.K., European and U.S. newspaper titles in the Gulf region.
The deal includes a $2.6 million investment in a new Screen Truepress Jet520 digital press, which could be commissioned as early as May, according to Amit Radia, chief executive officer of Atlas Media.
"There has always been a demand for international titles in the UAE, but the drawback was the lead time from import to newsstand delivery, which was always 10-12 hours too late," he said. "We will overcome that with this model."
The partnership will launch with approximately six undisclosed titles, with the printer producing anywhere from 500 to 2,000 copies of each.
Atlas has traditionally been a web offset printer of magazines, but recently developed a digital media division, which Radia said will focus on new media and technology.
"Newsworld has an excellent business model and the titles they work with are some of the most popular ones," he said.
Radia believes this model can be a successful one for newspapers as long as they make it valuable.
"It is a very niche industry and one has to develop the market with value-add in terms of distribution and service (which) deviates completely from the traditional print model," he said.
Radia said he's confident in the capability of the Screen and Hunkeler equipment to deliver the quality readers and advertisers demand.
"The quality is on par if not better than that of a normal newsprint paper on an offset web."

MediaNews unit sets plans for tailored news

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

MediaNews Group's Targeted Products Division said it hopes to begin testing its "individuated newspaper" concept this summer in an undisclosed market.
The project, dubbed I-News, will deliver targeted and customized newspaper content to subscribers via their home desktop computers, said Peter Vandevanter, MNG's vice president of targeted products.
I-News is the latest step in MNG's initiative to deliver new-form, niche products to newspaper readers (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2008).
"We're trying to create a new experience for our subscribers," Vandevanter told Newspapers & Technology. "It will be news people choose, delivered on a home printer in conjunction with their subscription to the paper."
Once MNG settles on a test market, I-News will be offered to interested readers who will receive their targeted content three or four days a week.
"Some newspapers make money on the big insert days and lose money on other days and that's why publishers like Detroit have said they will no longer print on those days," Vandevanter said. "Our idea is that we don't want to lose these subscribers, but instead we want to better serve them."
Detroit Media Partnership in December announced it would cut home delivery of the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News to only a few days a week and devote the bulk of its editorial resources to online distribution.
DMP, which is making the shift March 30, is the first major metro to make such a move. Vandevanter said Detroit is a model he'll be "watching like a hawk."
"We are trying to take the best of both worlds — give people the paper when it's valuable with inserts, etc., and then give them a product they want on other days," he said.
MNG is also looking at ways to allocate I-News so that it will count as paid circulation in its participating papers' Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers.
"We want to be able to grow circulation — something newspapers haven't done in decades," Vandevanter said.

Growing circulation
The home printer technology, currently being developed by a printing vendor that does not wish to be named, will not be tethered to a computer, Vandevanter said. Instead, users will plug in their devices into a conventional phone line in order to enable the printers to output the requested information.
The printing manufacturer participating in the test and the publisher may subsidize the price of ink and paper — up to five sheets per day — to offset users' costs.
Vandevanter said MNG is still hashing out other I-News details, including the pricing model and how many days out readers will be able to select the news they wish to receive. MNG is also evaluating how to pair targeted advertising with users' content.
Meantime, MNG is continuing its research on the role high-speed digital printers might play in the future of personalized newspapers. To that end, it's working with Océ to develop suitable workflow options to drive I-News and other potential products.
MediaNews' Targeted Products Group is one of a number of companies mulling the future of customized newspapers. The Washington Times and German software developer Syntops are also developing their own initiatives (see Newspapers & Technology, February 2009).

Vendor touting out-of-market printing as benefit

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

Printing newspapers out of market isn't a new concept, but a Miami-based vendor contends it's time for publishers to take a fresh look at the model.
The supplier, PressTerra, said it can help newspapers find economical outlets through which they can print their product out of market through its publication management service.
PressTerra has found partner print sites for some 40-plus titles, the bulk of those in Lisbon, Portugal, according to President and Chief Executive Officer Jerri Palmer.
"We take publishers and find print sites for them," she said. "We do the conversion (of files) and make sure we find a distributor close by or that has a printer on-site. If that distributor has a digital printer then they have hands-on capability to say how many of each paper they can print."
PressTerra most recently found digital printing outlets for titles including Al Jazeera of Saudi Arabia and Belgium's Vers l'Avenir.
Palmer views her company's service as a pathway for newspapers to break the mold.
"It's a win-win because the publisher is really taking no risk — there are no distribution demands," Palmer explained. "The distributor prints what he needs and sells it and the publisher gets a royalty based on what sells."
The magic number for digital printers is somewhere around 700 copies, according to Palmer, in terms of speed, time and profitability.

Growing circ numbers
Printing out of market gives publishers a way to grow their circ numbers and ad dollars when their own market is saturated.
The Los Angeles Times and Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of Germany are among the publishers that have grown circ numbers by printing in Lisbon, Palmer said. PressTerra is printing about 50 extra copies of WAZ each day currently, and Palmer said that number is growing, particularly at certain times of the year.
"A lot of newspaper publishers haven't thought about changing their ways and the models are very old and then what happens, too, is the ABC hasn't revamped the standards to demand ad dollars — for example, maybe their business section is a lot more popular than another section," Palmer said. "If you have great international sales then why can't you have international ad dollars? Publishers need to think beyond that standard business model."
Palmer has seen most of the digital vendors' presses in action, including those from Agfa, Océ, Screen and Kodak, and although they all get the job done, she said vendors need to adapt the machines to be more compact and faster.
"It's got to be able to fit in a distribution warehouse in a corner somewhere," she said. "They are going to have to get down to a reasonably-priced system and get a Hunkeler (finisher) that finishes as fast as it prints."
Profitability increases with machines that can run all the time and partner print sites want to have a press that can do other jobs as well as the newspapers. Successful sites, Palmer said print newspapers up to a certain time of day and then also print other products.
There are still time obstacles that need to be resolved in out-of-market printing, Palmer said, including in Asian countries that awake first and need to get a paper from L.A. or New York.
"There is no way you can have Day A papers by 9 a.m. in some areas. For instance, Australia time — there is no way — so to me, it's an entire mindset in publishing and advertising that has to change," Palmer said. "I think people are going to start to demand it — it's going to be pushed by consumers."

Brand loyalty
Palmer said brand loyalty is another factor driving the out-of-market model. Despite the availability of national publications like USA Today and The New York Times in the United States, she said there are still people that are extremely loyal to their own paper.
"People are extremely loyal to The Miami Herald, for example, and if they travel outside of Miami, they still want The Herald," she said. "So in the U.S. you have to break down people in certain areas. When British people travel, they go for The Times of London — it's the overall state of newspapers."
PressTerra's model works in two ways, aiming its service at distributors who know which papers they want to print and to publishers that have specific geographic areas in which they want to print and distribute.

Where e-editions fit in
Palmer said PressTerra's service doesn't necessarily compete with digital editions and that e-editions will still be popular with readers on the go and for publishers looking for ways to digitally archive their information.
Both models, she said, can attract advertising dollars.
"Publishers need to approach it as something we have to do — we need to be on the forefront of this — maybe a (printed) newspaper is in synergy with digital."
She warns, however, that some digital models currently available can devalue a newspaper's content.
"A publisher's intellectual property is their actual value, so how are newspapers benefiting from these models. Is their royalty being bastardized?" she asked. "We look at the whole solution and how to implement it and make it work to maximize profit."
By printing an actual paper remotely, Palmer said newspapers can receive royalty payments for anything they sell and also post numbers that can be tracked by circulation audit agencies.
"If you're going to do something, make money at it," she said. That's your goal as a newspaper — to care and guard your intellectual property and make money off of it."

PressTerra at a glance
Newspaper titles available for on-demand printing through PressTerra include 24 Heures, Al Jazeera, De Morgren, De Standaard, Die Presse, Ekstra Bladet, El Nuevo Herald, Evening Standard, the Globe and Mail, La Presse, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald. Politiken, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Washington Post, Vers l’Avenir, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.
In addition to the print site in Lisbon, PressTerra works with more than 30 partner print sites including those in Sydney; Singapore; Dubai; Istanbul, Turkey; Moscow; Munich, Germany; Geneva; London, Toronto; Madrid, Spain; Cancun, Mexico; and Kingston, Jamaica. U.S. partner sites include those in New York; Washington D.C.; Miami; Detroit; Los Angeles and Troy, Mich.

Newsworld taps Screen in project to produce newspapers in Gulf

Newsworld Corp. said it’s partnered with Atlas Media Communications for the digital production of U.K., European and U.S. newspaper titles in the Gulf region.
The deal includes a $2.6 million investment in a Screen Truepress Jet 520 digital press, which could be commissioned as early as April, Newsworld said. Through its “distribute then print” service launched in 2007, Newsworld leverages and pairs publishers with printing outlets equipped with a Screen digital press and Hunkeler inline finishing system.
“This area is of great interest to publishers who are looking to reach the increasing number of business executives, expatriates and visitors to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Kuwait with timely, relevant news and information,” said John Ashfield, chairman of Newsworld.
Meantime, Newsworld this month began distributing Associated Newspapers’ Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday to New York residents.
The papers are produced on a Truepress Jet 520 press under a deal with New Jersey-based AlphaGraphics (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2008).
“As we continue to invest in this technology and form partnerships worldwide, we are opening up a very exciting opportunity for newspaper publishers to grow their brand, not only locally but in a more effective and efficient way,” said Newsworld’s David Renouf.

4 questions with Donald Allred

Newspapers & Technology continues its 4 Questions series aimed at digital press vendors. This month, Donald Allred, director of business development for inkjet printing solutions with Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group, talks about his company’s offerings and where they fit into the newspaper market.




How is Kodak approaching newspapers and how do you see Kodak fitting into this industry?

Kodak has been a part of the success of the newspaper industry for more than 100 years. Our product portfolio includes CTP devices, workflow products, digital plates and chemistry. In addition, Kodak has been helping customers reach success using our wide range of variable digital printing systems for direct mail and including promotional content with transactional statements. With these combined attributes, Kodak is a natural and logical partner to help newspapers take advantage of digital printing.

Kodak is the only partner to provide a broad selection of digital printing equipment. We provide addressing systems to enable proper delivery through the mail, part page systems that enable on-press digital printing without slowing down the presses, and stand-alone complete digital newspaper press systems.

According to Kodak, what are some of the benefits of drop-on-demand vs. continuous inkjet technology for newspapers?

Kodak believes that both technologies have a role to play in digital newspaper printing. In fact, Kodak employs both technologies in products designed for the newspaper printing industry. We use the inherent capability of high print speed associated with continuous inkjet to provide products that can provide variable digital printing right on the newspaper press — at newspaper press speeds. CIJ is the basis of the Kodak Versamark VX printing system, offering very high-speed digital newspaper printing, while drop-on-demand technology powers the Kodak Versamark VL printing system, which achieves a slightly slower speed, but enhanced image quality. Both products offer low cost of operation, and highly efficient operation.

What trends do you see in digital printing for newspapers as far as news products, niche products, etc? What new technologies/features do you see emerging in digital presses that could potentially benefit newspapers?

A general drive to become more relevant is necessary for newspapers to maintain their readership during this age of information on demand. One area of success has been shorter run, targeted community newspapers. General news and advertisements can be combined with content provided through Web portals by members of communities.

Most U.S.-based newspapers have a tremendously powerful asset — their customer list and their home-delivery system. These two capabilities can be combined to provide a cost-effective alternative to direct mail. Short run inserts containing advertisements or stories, targeted to general demographical information of specific neighborhoods or streets, can be combined with the morning delivery.

A key trend of digital printing is the combination of increasing quality and lowering the cost of printing. The image quality of the Kodak Versamark VL2000 printing system meets or exceeds requirements for any newspaper printing job. The focus on productivity and value combine to reduce operating costs, making digital production of short-run newspapers feasible for many applications. These trends will continue in the future as the company brings its Kodak Stream Inkjet technology into the newspaper production market, enabling an even broader range of digital applications.

The newspaper industry has been talking for many years about the potential benefits of digital printing. Is the technology really ready to deliver these benefits?

Kodak’s current offerings provide reliability and cost effectiveness, performance metrics that support the technical fit to the application. Software workflow systems are the critical enabler for the transition to digital printing. Remote digital printing can be done easily today with PDF workflows and high-speed Kodak front ends. Other applications may require software workflow elements such as Web portal-based community news with automated print set up, automated gaming and demographic advertising.